Presentation Transcript

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In 1930, UO sociologist Luther Cressman was invited by a Gold Hill farmer to examine Indian burials exposed during field leveling.
It was his first exposure to archaeology, thereafter
his unwavering career path. Luther Cressman Obsidian dance blade,
Southwest Oregon

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Cressman began writing to postmasters across the state, hoping to develop contacts with people who had knowledge of rock art sites;
he followed this in 1932 with an extensive survey
of Oregon pictographs and petroglyphs

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From his early contacts with ranchers and amateur historians
across the state, Cressman learned of southeast Oregon
caves and rockshelters with the potential to hold
a long record of the region’s human history

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Catlow Cave Excavation 1938

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Catlow Valley Expedition, ca. 1938

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Pair of child’s sagebrush bark sandals
Catlow Cave, 1938

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Much of Cressman’s early fieldwork was done more than a decade before the development of radiocarbon dating. Many of these important fiber artifacts have now been radiocarbon dated.
Child’s sagebrush bark sandals, Catlow Cave , 900 yrs old

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Tule sandal, Roaring Springs Cave
1530 yrs old

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Sagebrush bark sandal, Catlow Cave
9350 yrs old

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Sagebrush bark and hemp twining,
Catlow Cave, 9610 yrs old

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Luther Cressman & Field Crew, ca. 1938

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Most of his contemporaries ridiculed the idea. Fort Rock Cave, 1938 Mt. Mazama ash, 7500 yrs old Sagebrush bark sandals
ca. 9500 yrs old Based on the discovery of sandals beneath ancient volcanic ash
at Fort Rock Cave, Cressman proposed a then-radical idea that
people had lived in Oregon for as long as 10,000 years.

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Mt. Mazama ash, 7500 yrs old Sagebrush bark sandals
ca. 9500 yrs old A dozen years after discovery of the sandals at Fort Rock Cave,
the development of radiocarbon dating proved Cressman right.

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Sagebrush bark sandal
Fort Rock Cave , 9490 yrs old

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Cressman field camp, ca. 1938

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Trained as a sociologist, Cressman recognized his shortcomings in geology, botany,
zoology, and other fields critical to archaeology. He sought the input of specialists,
launching the multidisciplinary approach to research that became his standard. Cressman party studying ancient lake sediments in Catlow Valley, ca. 1938

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Cressman also investigated the Paisley Caves, in the Summer Lake Basin,
where he found cultural material in apparent association
with the bones of extinct Pleistocene mammals

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Museum Archaeology Crew

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Museum crews returned to the Paisley Caves
in the last decade, to investigate the
terminal Pleistocene human occupations